Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by kenjackson on Monday March 07, 2011 @10:29PM (#2299705)

One wonders about the wisdom of treating any interaction with an adult as being tantamount to asking for sexual exploitation... but I think I talked to maybe three adults who were not parents, teachers, or family in an eight year period.

Did your family subscribe to any specific religion or something that would lead to this behavior? I just had never heard of something like this. Although I guess if the age span is 0-8 there's really not that many adults to interact with who aren't family or teachers. It's not like you're going to work or having lunch dates. And it's not like some random 32 year old is going to come over to just hang out. But still, it seems odd to even think that either you were being specifically shielded or you thought you were.

At age 8, or even 10, I never though, "I wish I could talk to more adults". If anything, I probably would've like to talk to fewer adults. :-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by patio11 on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @12:50AM (#2300002)

We were a middle-class(-ish) Catholic family in the suburbs. I think alienation from the larger community is not that abnormal of an experience these days.

For example, if you read books or watch TV from the fifties, you might have a twelve year old boy with a friendship with a man in the neighborhood, perhaps in the context of sharing their common interest in carpentry or fence-painting, and doing totally innocuous things like having iced tea together during summer. Are you of the impression that remains normal behavior today?

I would be scared out of my wits if a neighborhood kid took a shine on me and started coming over to my house to say hello. That's one worried phone call from mom away from my life being ruined.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by cabalamat on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @07:18AM (#2300634)

> I would be scared out of my wits if a neighborhood kid took a shine on me and started coming over to my house to say hello.

Most people in the UK would feel the same way. (I'm not sure if that's true to the same extent in non-English-speaking European countries.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by jimbokun on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @08:45AM (#2300797)

Are you still in Japan?

Asking because I'm curious whether this kind of adult/child relationship stigma is as prevalent there as it is in the U.S.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by kenjackson on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @11:29AM (#2301457)

I think alienation from the larger community is not that abnormal of an experience these days.

That's quite possibly true. Maybe the plight of suburbia. While I agree that adult/child hanging out is not common, I don't think it ever was all that common. I can't imagine I'd have any reason to talk to most children. It's not that I'm afraid of a phone call, but I just don't think it would be very interesting to me.

At best I think you find that one adult who you can relate to in some offbeat way. Maybe painting fences, as you suggest. But still that just raises your number of adults to 4. It's just not common that a child will associate freely, and w/o supervision, with 150 random adults in their childhood.

[ Parent | on HN ]